Landing on the mainland

You’re here because you’ve finished with Orientation Island or Help Island and want to go to the Second Life mainland where you will be able to experience everything that Second Life has to offer. You will leave for the mainland by clicking one of the exit boards on Orientation or Help Islands.

If you’ve just finished the Orientation Island tutorials and want to reach the mainland click on the Exit board in Orientation Island’s central hub.

If you’re on Help Island go to the Sandbox area to find the exit board (below). The procedure is the same whether you’re clicking the exit board in Orientation or Help Island.

Once you click on the exit boards on Orientation or Help Islands things can get a bit confusing. There isn’t a universal arrival destination on Second Island – more like several.

Every time you click on the exit board you get a notecard from a different mainland landing place (known as temporary welcome areas). It’s like flying to another country and having different cities trying to get you to land at their airport. The cards they hand out give you directions for teleporting to their own welcome areas.

It really doesn’t matter which temporary welcome areas you head to because you can then take off quickly to your own preferred destinations.

Another destination card.

If you select Keep the destination cards are automatically added to your Notecards folder in your Inventory.

Jeb has decided to teleport to the “Violet Temporary Welcome Area”. When you get your chosen destination’s card click Keep it click on the link in the resulting box and then hit the Teleport button.

Finally Jeb’s arrived on the mainland! The temporary welcome areas are information hubs with signs and useful information about the virtual world of Second Life.

They also have volunteer guides. This is one of the few times on Second Island when you’ll feel comfortable asking lots of really dumb questions.

To show the difference in temporary welcome areas this is another one the Gukyeol welcome area. Look at all the noobs arriving along with you. Some of their clothes haven’t formed yet.

In the Gukyeol temporary welcome area noobs surround the volunteer help guide the weird animal guy in the black cape. Note the Furry avatar with the tail. Why do people want to look like squirrels? Jeb asks the caped crusader a few questions but it’s time to get away and find his own destinations in Second Life.

However at this point he is still underequipped to experience everything Second Life has to offer. For a start the clothes mark him as a newcomer which makes finding romance harder. The secret social hierarchy in Second Life seems to be based heavily on your appearance. And Jeb does not have money (Linden dollars) to buy anything. Right now he needs to stock up on more free gear so he’ll head out to a couple of freebie stores that are better than Help Island’s Freebie store.